2013-10-22, 10:14
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Link #1721 | |
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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At the end of each period, there's a 7-way contest for a secondary award. That secondary award is the necklace corresponding with the period (Aquamarine Necklace, Amethyst Necklace, etc...). Won-Loss record, and whether or not a character has already won a Necklace in the current calender year, are the main determinants when it comes to who gets into the 7-way Necklace matches, IIRC. This much I really like, since I think it nicely spices up the ISML regular season, while also giving a wider range of girls a chance of winning something at least. However, every participant going into the Necklace match has a predetermined period-based SDO score. This SDO score is based on each participant's Won-Loss record just during the current period (not the full regular season), and is also based on the strength levels of her opponents during that period (it's a bit complicated). For all three of the last three Necklace matches of 2013, Mikoto Misaka was stuck with a much-lower SDO than her strongest opponent SDO-wise. So in spite of how Mikoto received the most votes in two of those three matches, she never won a Necklace this year. I think that SDO encourages heavy amounts of strategic voting, which means less heart-based voting (i.e. voting for who you like best in each match, period). I think that SDO also increases the importance of luck while decreasing the importance of character strength. And as we saw with Mikoto this year, it can be very punishing to certain characters. For these reasons, I wish SDO didn't exist in ISML. But this is a critic's side of things - To get a full picture of SDO, it might be good if a fan of SDO explains it as well.
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Last edited by Triple_R; 2013-10-22 at 10:26. |
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2013-10-22, 12:58
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Link #1722 |
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Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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The finals this year show that a year restriction is not needed in ISML. Time will tell when the older girls are no longer considered moe' enough. The voters choose the girls to begin with so over time the older series fade if they are not considered moe enough any more.
The likes of Nanoha and Fate are gone. Fate was the first champion. The Rozen Maidens are gone, as is Higurashi, Kanon, and Clannad seems like it is on the way out to give room for Angel Beat and Little Busters. Only the best of the best are suppose to remains, but even at the top, there will be someone on the bottom. If I remember correctly, this was the first year were everyone in stella won at least a single match. No one lost ever single match. Someone in Nova went all zero.
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2013-10-22, 16:00
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Link #1723 | |
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Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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Let's suppose, just for argument's sake, that ISML had the same entry rules as J-SaiMoe. Kuroneko still would have won, since she's from a recently airing anime. But her opponent would have been somebody other than Kanade. There's a good chance her opponent would have been Mikoto. Kuroneko vs. Mikoto probably would have attracted more voters than an all-HanaKana finale, no offense to HanaKana fans.
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2013-10-22, 16:36
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Link #1724 |
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Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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You are looking too close to the present. ISML has been going since 2008 and none of the finalists from that year made it into the 2013 finals. ISML was set up as a Best of the Best of all Time (Relative to Anime), rather than a Who is the Best Girl from This Year Only, type tournament. The first year took in the winners of prior Saimoe tourmanents as a baseline (discounting 2003 and 2004 due to lack of international voting those years, and the 2002 winner entered by popular vote) and Korean Best Moe and Superbest Moe prior to Winter 2008. Then characters were voted in with the cast of Clannad dominating the votes. Yet it was Fate that won.
Procedures have changed over time, especially the automatic inclusion of Saimoe and Best Moe winners once those tournaments started banning international voters. But the basic core challenge remains to show who is the Best of the Best of All Moe Girls in Anime. Regardless of year. When the voters get tired of a girl, they will stop voting for her and eventually she will disappear into the mists of time like the others that have gone before them.
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2013-10-22, 17:33
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Link #1725 | ||
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Quote:
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2013-10-22, 18:10
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Link #1726 | ||||
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Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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Now, I'll admit that it's not a huge deal yet. But yet another year of the old 2011 standbys dominating the top of ISML would definitely not be good for ISML. I hope that I'm wrong about this, but I very much think that the old 2011 standbys will continue to dominate in 2014. Four straight years of the same girls at the top is a bit much, imo. Quote:
1. Madoka Magica took a full year off in 2012. In my view, dominating 2 out of 3 years is significantly different than dominating 3 straight. If you don't like Madoka Magica, at least you get a break from it in 2012. If you don't like Kanade, you're not getting a break at all. 2. I'm not just talking about Kanade here. Kanade, Kuroneko, Eu, and Mikoto are no less dominant in ISML 2011 through 2013 than the Madoka main cast are in J-SaiMoe this year and in 2011. So it's not 1 vs. 5, it's dominant group vs. dominant group. It's the same thing, except with one group, at least you get an one-year break from them. Quote:
I definitely think you're underestimating Mikoto, and I think that Kuroneko vs. Mikoto would have had more votes than Kuroneko vs. Kanade for the ISML Tiara Final.
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2013-10-23, 07:25
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Link #1728 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Planet Earth
Age: 54
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I think we also need to admit that there are some years that doesn't give as much characters to be excited about compared to some other years. It is possible that we had really fruitful year in 2010, thus 2011 newcomers were strong, but rather dry year in 2011.
Here is a good way to check the reality of the situation. For every year in ISML's existence, let's see what is the highest finish among the "new comers" and how many "last year" anime characters made it to top 16. I will do the last 3 years, but I encourage others to check my numbers and also see what happened in the first 3 years as well. For inaugural 2008 season, just use any new anime character from 2007 as a "newcomer" to the event. 2013 : Highest finish - 5th ( Shiina Mashiro ) , Number in top 16 - 5 2012 : Highest finish - 14th ( Hasegawa Kobato ) , Number in top 16 - 2 2011 : Highest finish - 3rd ( Tachibana Kanade ), Number in top 16 - 6 Sadly, the hype surrounding new characters that appeared in 2013 seems even less than the 2011 crop ( those that got into ISML in 2012 ). That could mean that 2014 might finally be a year that a past Tiara winner gets to win the Tiara again. Let's think one more thing. It is possible that random fluctuation gives us rather poor harvest for moe characters in some years. Why should we deliberately reward the poor crop by letting them avoid being matched against crops from good year?
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2013-10-23, 10:55
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Link #1729 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
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2008 ISML:
- Exclusively 2007 or later - (3) Lucky Star, (3) Clannad, (1) Hayate no Gotoku = 7 new comers in top 16 - Highest top 16 finish = Hiiragi Kagami (3rd Place) - Add in Code Geass <C.C.> (1st season was between 2006 and 2007) = 8 new comers in top 16 2009 ISML: - 10 out of 16 repeat top 16 finishes - New series in 2008 - (1) Toradora, (1) Spice & Wolf = 2 new comers in top 16 - New series in 2008 not included in 2008 ISML - (1) Toradora = 1 new comer in top 16 (I see Holo/Horo at 19th in 2008 ISML) - Highest top 16 finish = Aisaka Taiga (7th Place) 2010 ISML: - 8 out of 16 (2009 challengers) repeat top 16 finishes - New series in 2009 - (3) K-ON, (2) Monogatari series = 5 new comers in top 16 - Highest top 16 finish = Mio Akiyama (Tiara) * 3 returning characters with their first appearance in top 16 = Mikoto, Nagi Sanzen'in, Saber
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2013-10-23, 12:26
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Link #1731 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
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Seeing that the other tiara winners already had ambitions of winning the tiara before they started their first year, 42nd place for Mikoto (Railgun) would be considered horrible. She still managed 23 wins and there were a total of 64 challengers in 2009.
23 - 40 and 42nd place was still good enough for Mikoto, even in 2009 to be the most popular Index character stat wise. Main character Index was 16 - 47 and 48th place
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2013-10-29, 23:06
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Link #1732 |
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Defying gravity
Join Date: Jul 2010
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I feel as though we need "something" to gauge character strength, not just by votes for alone. SDO (strength of the opponent) is at least a something: characters should be rewarded by how difficult their fight was with their supposed more difficult opponent. While it can be manipulated, I currently cannot think of an alternative method to create a proper "gauge" on who is worth going to the necklace round. The only thing I can think of at the moment is to diminishing further the power SDO has over matches, which I believe they have done if we compare last year to this year. Maybe, instead of dividing the final SDO by 3, divide it by 4 or 5, although that sounds like a lot, even though it does a job of decreasing SDO power. Or maybe have the maximum value of SDO be 2 rather than 3, so the highest anyone can make is 120 in comparison to 180, although I am sure they used 3 for a reason. Or, we can make SDO so complicated that not only do voters have to care about the strength of their opponents, they have to care about the strength of that person's opponent, which means they have to care about that characters strength for her opponents, etc., unless that is how SDO actually does its magic, since I still don't understand well the concept of all of that is. However, I think that provides rather minor numbers as opposed to the core 7 that manipulators should look at, but they do ultimately add up in the end one way or another. These are some of my thoughts on this topic to be taken with a grain of salt.
Sadly, I believe wontaek is correct that the probability of a former Tiara holder winning next year is very high. Unless Nova gets a surprisingly strong contender that can fend against the likes of Kanade, Ruri, and Mikoto, or someone from Stella not already mentioned get a major popularity boost (i.e. another season, etc.), I don't know who can face them other than themselves. I'm looking at Henneko and Date a Live, but I'm having my doubts. That, or I'm not watching enough "moe" anime by international standards. Last edited by broken270; 2013-10-29 at 23:22. |
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2013-10-30, 08:34
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Link #1733 | ||
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NOM.
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Singapore
Age: 31
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Quote:
So what's SDO stand for, again? Quote:
Take a certain girl A. Her first match is against girl B, where she wins 3456-2341. Second match is against girl C, where she loses 2322-3376. Her score after these 2 matches will be: 1 win, 0 ties, 1 loss, 5778 votes for, 5717 votes against. In the event of the same number of wins/ties/losses (points) for 2 girls (if more girls are tied, adjust the criteria accordingly), use the following steps to determine a winner. Not all need to be used; it varies from league to league. Of course, these are not the only tiebreaker methods; there are many others, some of which suit the scoring system of a specific league. In the event of a tie, votes for/against or head-to-head (either one can have higher priority, but the other must come into play if the first one fails to determine a winner) can be used. If after applying both factors both are still tied (or there is no head-to-head encounter as of the time where a tiebreak is needed), then the girl with more votes (implies having played in tougher matches than the other girl and still came out on top) wins. Some leagues actually put head-to-head encounter at a lower priority than this. If it's still a tie you can repeat the steps in the above paragraphs, this time taking only the scores of opponents both girls have had; this is more or less indirect head-to-head encounter. Or you can take only the scores of opponents both girls have had the first time round, then take overall scores; it's up to the league really. (Obviously this is not likely to work at certain times, such as when all the league matches are over, but just putting it here for when it works.) If both are still tied (and they haven't had their head-to-head encounter yet), they could have their match right here as a playoff, where the winner goes through, and when their scheduled match comes up they'll have a break. If that match is a tie... only then do you use SDO.
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Last edited by iamadooddood; 2013-10-30 at 09:22. |
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2013-10-30, 09:05
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Link #1734 | |
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Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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Kanade and Kuroneko winning the first two Necklaces this year was horribly predictable anyway. SDO just made it even more predictable.  Asuna, Rikka, and Mashiro all enjoyed massive SDO advantages in Ruby, Emerald, and Topaz respectively, making their eventual victories painfully obvious. In fairness, Mikoto made things surprisingly close in Emerald, but the fact that such an impressively strong performance still wasn't enough to overcome Mikoto's SDO disadvantage makes it even more clear how obvious Rikka's eventual victory was. SDO does not accomplish what it is supposed to do - Which is make the Necklace matches more interesting/less predictable. In some cases, it actually makes the Necklace matches more predictable than what they otherwise would be. And SDO ends up unfairly screwing some girls, as it did Mikoto, in my opinion. There's no question that Mikoto wins a Necklace this year if not for SDO.
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2013-10-30, 09:40
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Link #1735 | ||
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NOM.
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Singapore
Age: 31
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I just looked at the rules and saw the scoring format: Quote:
Methinks something like this kind of scoring coould be used in between SDO and SAO. Also, VD and VF should be higher on the list, but that's just me. In addition, ties in leagues with this kind of scoring system are just nasty to the girls involved, with this sort of rules. Win-tie-loss should be 2-1-0, not 3-1-0, and "greater number of wins" should be much lower in the priority bracket. I mean, the girl with 1 win and 3 losses is stronger than the girl with 3 ties and 1 loss. This results in stuff like 5 wins and 6 losses being stronger than 3 wins, 6 ties and 2 losses. There's no justice in that. At the very least, "greater win/loss ratio" would have been better than "greater number of wins". "Selection by Staff"... I really don't like the fact that ties have to come down to this. And yet it's sometimes necessary. Grrrr.
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Last edited by iamadooddood; 2013-10-30 at 09:56. |
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2013-10-30, 22:59
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Link #1736 | |
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Mishaguji-sama
Join Date: Oct 2010
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Regular season standings had never come anywhere near needing staff selection before.
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2013-10-30, 23:56
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Link #1737 | |
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Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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I debated this with Eater of All way back in 2011. Here was Eater of All's comprehensive defense of SDO. Key Excerpt from that linked post: Which forms the basis for why the current staff views necklace as nothing more than spice (important spice, but spice nonetheless) for voters to get through the regular season. It all comes down to this: making necklace matches be sole judge of necklaces (or any method that employs pure strength) would make things predictable, and therefore less fun. If the fundamental issue is that people find pure strength = more fun than having luck be involved, then yeah, it's something we've got to agree to disagree on. ------------------------------------------------------- Eater of All (who appears to be speaking on behalf of the ISML Staff) is clearly implying here that SDO is designed to make things less predictable, and hence "more fun". But as 2013 has made clear, it doesn't really work that way in application. Anyway, for those interested, here was my counterargument to Eater of All back in 2011. Finally, if "less predictability" isn't the point of SDO, then what is the point of it?
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2013-10-31, 11:19
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Link #1738 | ||
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NOM.
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Singapore
Age: 31
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Quote:
If only sudden death was possible... Quote:
EDIT: @Triple_R: I just finished reading the posts you directed me to, and it gave me some insight. If ISML's tiebreaker rules were entirely up to me, then I'd do it like this (at least tentatively, in case any better suggestions come along):
First and foremost, I'd completely scrap the "greater number of wins" part, because ties are typically extremely rare in this kind of competition (think ties in sports like cricket, and you'll see what I mean), and one vote can determine if it's a tie or a win/loss. It's as good as leaving it up to luck, and even worse than what SDO's doing. Of course, I'd use the 2-1-0 points system for a win/tie/loss as well. I just noticed bonus fractional points being awarded to losers of a match, depending on the % of total votes obtained in the match. (How did I miss this out the first time. Now that's just unfair to those who got ties.) I'd like to extend this system to either:
On my stance on luck, it should play as little a part on unpredictability as possible. Because that kind of unpredictability is the "undesired" kind. Unpredictability due to effort and strength are the "desired" kinds of unpredictability, and so should be encouraged as much as possible. I deemed SDO and STO (SAO would be the same for obvious reasons) unnecessary in step 1 because, I mean, come on, it's against common opponents. It's as fair as can be. No need to add in S-whatever-O and risk screwing things up. Unlikely, but possible. For the same reason, I placed head-to-head only after everything else in step 1. Step 3 is a completely optional choice; I don't mind if it's removed actually, but it does seem like quite a good idea to me. If implemented, this playoff will be treated as their actual match; when their scheduled match comes up they'll have a break instead. EDIT 2: Here's how I'd do the necklace system if it were up to me (tentatively, that is): 5 or 7 necklaces a year is up to the admins. Heck, I wouldn't even mind if they alternated between 5 and 7 every other year. Method to determine 4th-ranked contestant (if not by playoff)
Ties can be resolved as above. Finally, if the postseason was up to me: Phase 1 (for each division) Round 1 (seeding unchanged from ISML 2013's format) Match 1: 1 vs. 16 Match 2: 8 vs. 9 Match 3: 5 vs. 12 Match 4: 4 vs. 13 Match 5: 6 vs. 11 Match 6: 3 vs. 14 Match 7: 7 vs. 10 Match 8: 2 vs. 15 Round 2 Match 1: R1M1 winner vs. R1M2 winner Match 2: R1M3 winner vs. R1M4 winner Match 3: R1M5 winner vs. R1M6 winner Match 4: R1M7 winner vs. R1M8 winner Round 3 Match 1: R2M1 winner vs. R2M2 winner Match 2: R2M3 winner vs. R2M4 winner Match 3: R2M1 loser vs. R2M2 loser Match 4: R2M3 loser vs. R2M4 loser Round 4 Match 1: R3M1 winner vs. R3M2 winner Match 2: R3M1 loser vs. R3M2 loser Match 3: R3M3 winner vs. R3M4 winner Match 4: R3M3 loser vs. R3M4 loser Results (also seeding for Phase 2) 1: R4M1 winner 2: R4M1 loser 3: R4M2 winner 4: R4M2 loser 5: R4M3 winner 6: R4M3 loser 7: R4M4 winner 8: R4M4 loser 9-16: Determined with ISML 2013's method Phase 2 will be done the same way as in ISML 2013. Additional match: The Phase 1 winner of each division to face off against each other for a second tiara. This second tiara winner to then face off against the Phase 2 winner for the Champion of ISML for the year (unless the same girl won both tiaras, in which case she's the undisputed Champion). (Or you can call the prizes different stuff if you want.) Again, comments welcome.
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Last edited by iamadooddood; 2013-10-31 at 14:14. |
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2013-10-31, 20:55
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Link #1739 |
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Mishaguji-sama
Join Date: Oct 2010
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What is true is that the necklace matches are spices to get the regular season moving, and are not important to the overall picture. However, that's not what SDO is for. SDO is meant to be something that indicates the performance of characters over the period in question (and the period alone), and is always supposed to be the main basis for necklaces. The necklace match, to quote wontaek in an answer he gave to an interview (although the actual interview is translated to Chinese before publicized): "Still people may feel certain character’s SDO to be undeserved for whatever the reason. This is why we must have necklace group round. In a way, we are asking people which character deserves higher necklace score given the relative hardship they overcame."
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2013-10-31, 23:51
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Link #1740 |
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Senior Member
Author
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Age: 42
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So why should some complex period-based calculation scheme matter more than how competitors actually do head-to-head against each other in an exciting 7-way match?
Valuing SDO more than the Necklace match itself really strikes me as the wrong approach to take. Using SDO to determine who gets into the Necklace match is a fine idea, very reflective of pro sports leagues using regular season performance to determine who gets into the playoffs. But then let pure vote count determine who wins the Necklace. In the unlikely even of a vote count tie, use SDO as a tie-breaker. That's my position.
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